If you are looking for precedents of innovative approaches to next generation water and wastewater infrastructure check out the Code Innovations Database. Recode, Molly Winter, has contributed several case studies including one on a composting toilet pilot project in Cape Cod and a more successful one in Arizona.

Developing Model Codes

Recode works with model code writing organizations (like IAPMO) and local jurisdictions (like Oregon DEQ) to create performance based code language for green building practices.

Recode's team created a site-built composting toilet code with options for urine diversion for IAPMO’s 2015 Green Supplement to the Uniform Plumbing Code.
The 2015 Green Supplement is also serving as the foundation for WE-Stand 2017, IAPMO’s upcoming National Standard for water efficiency and sanitation. IAPMO is a plumbing and mechanical industry group whose codes have been adopted by jurisdictions worldwide.

Assisting Early Adopters

The town of Falmouth, Massachusetts near Cape Cod, authorized funding for a pilot project to evaluate the efficacy, installation cost and public acceptance of both composting and urine-diverting toilets (called the Eco-toilet Demonstration Program). Check out Recode’s case study in the Code Innovations Database. Homeowners were given rebates and other incentives to encourage them to use eco-toilets. Massachusetts is the first state to give a variance to allow urine-diverting fixtures and site-built composting toilets, which do not have ‘product acceptance’ in Massachusetts.

Shifting Paradigms

Next generation infrastructure will never become the norm until a concerted effort – by allied partners – is made to learn from projects on the cutting edge, change perceptions, and work collaboratively with policymakers and regulators to change the way we govern innovation.

How might our systems of governance be designed for learning -- for both innovation and impact? In planning and development, one promising approach is called performance based: the use of regulations and codes that define desired outcomes, but not how such outcomes might be achieved.

Recode toured the state in 2012 to educate communities & regulators in Oregon about the benefits of creating "waste" treatment rules for Oregon that judge alternatives to septic and sewer systems on their performance and let alternatives compete on cost. Our goal was to lay the groundwork for a positive, effective, apolitical sanitation rules process.